Alright, let's pray together. Father, we thank You for these songs that we have sang tonight. We thank You for the loving family and the talents that You've blessed them with. Thank You for the time they have spent in preparation. Lord, we thank You for these words because they remind us of the truth that we only follow hard after You when You lead us on. And so we pray that tonight through Your Word that You will lead us forth, Lord, that You will call us back to You, that we will, in response, run hard after You. And so we pray that You will renew us today, this evening, with Your Word. Please enable me to preach Your Word clearly. Guard me from any error. We pray that You will be glorified above all. In Jesus' name we pray this, Amen. We're going to be in Psalm 119 tonight. Psalm 119. And we're going to begin looking in the first eight verses. Psalm 119, verses 1-8. It says, "...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 or your just and righteous decrees. I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me." Well, Psalm 119, the whole chapter celebrates the gift of God's Word. The psalmist in Psalm 119, goes on for 176 verses, talking about how he delights in God's Word, what a gift it is. He prays prayers of how he desires his heart to seek after God. Psalm 119 is held up for us as being the perfect guide for life. This should be what we desire, and this is what God desires for His people. And so, my topic tonight, to go along with the theme for this week, is reading and studying the Word. Reading and studying the Word. And in preparing this message, I began to struggle with the question, well, how do I motivate you and motivate me to read and study God's Word? How do I really do that? How do I encourage you? I began to think, well, I could talk about why it's important to read the Word of God. And perhaps that might motivate some, but it would probably not change your desire for the Word. You would just be reminded of some things you already knew. Or I could talk about how it's the duty of each believer to study the Word. And I could make a very strong case for why it is so important and why we should feel a responsibility to study God's Word. And yet, in doing that, I fear that we would only produce in you and in me a guilt for our failures, of not studying the Word like we should and just lay down a law that does little to change our desires for God's Word. So then, what do we do? I mean, we're Baptists. We motivate people either out of guilt or telling them why they ought to do something. So what should motivate us to study the Word of God? What does God's Word have to say about the motivation that we should have for studying the Word? And so we found, or as I began to study and ponder this question, I found the answer here, I think, in Psalm 119 and what the psalmist writes. The answer or the motivation that the psalmist gives here in Psalm 119 is that the thing that should motivate us to read and study God's Word is a deep yearning and desire for God, a yearning to see God in His beauty and then to be so in love with Him that we want this same perfection in our lives. The psalmist of chapter 119 delights in God's Word because it describes God's character and he loves God so much that the psalmist wants to be transformed to be like Him. So notice how the psalmist starts this psalm, and we've read a portion of this already. Look with me here in verses 1, 2, and 3. He says, 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." Who are the blessed or the blessed? See, that's paying homage to the King James. Blessed. We still say that word even though it's in modern language blessed, right? Anyway, who are the blessed? Because blessed are the peacemakers, right? Okay, never mind. We'll just go on. Poor attempt at making fun of myself for how I'm saying this word. Who are the blessed that he's talking about? Well, the blessed, he says, are those who keep God's testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, verse 2. So the term blessed or blessed describes, the word blessed literally means the truly happy person. So the truly happy person, according to what we see here in Psalm 119 and other places, the truly happy person is happy because they have been showered with the favor of God. They have been showered with the favor of God. This is the same word that Jesus used in Matthew chapter 5 in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5.8. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Matthew 5.6. So this idea here of blessed is the Old Testament's way of speaking about grace. When you have been favored by God, that is the Old Testament way of speaking about God's grace has been shown to you. And so, let me just right here at the beginning give you the whole point of this message, so you don't miss it. So here it is, right now, the whole point of the message. Here is what I hope to accomplish in this message tonight. What I want to do in this message is to help you and me find the only true motivations that will give us a desire to read and study God's Word. That's what I want to accomplish and that's what my desire is tonight. So, Psalm 119. What motivates the psalmist? What motivates him? to seek the Lord. What motivates him to say that he seeks the Lord with his whole heart? And what motivates him to say that he desires to keep God's testimonies, to walk in the law of the Lord? What motivates him? Well, he says that a desire to seek God with his whole heart The thing that motivates him is the meditation on God's Word itself. When he meditates on God's Word, it shows him the beauty of the Lord, and that causes him to have a desire to be like the one that he loves. So our motivation must be a desire to know God and see His beauty, the beauty of His character in His Word. That must be one of our motivations. Any other motivation is not only insufficient, but I would submit to you, is idolatry. Have you ever stopped to think about what is it that motivates me to read God's Word? Or when I don't have a desire to read God's Word, How do I preach to myself? How do I talk to myself in order to talk myself into desiring God's Word? What is it that you do? Have you ever stopped to think about that and to really consider what it is that you use to motivate you or maybe what other people use to motivate you? Let me give an example. For example, if I am not motivated to read and study God's Word, if I'm not motivated, then I could say, well, I ought to do it because it's my duty. I'm a Christian and everybody knows it's the duty of Christians to read the Word. Right? Well, if that's what I use as my motivation, then what am I doing? I'm desiring to seek either the approval of other people because I'm doing this because it's the right thing, or if I'm doing it out of duty, perhaps I'm seeking the approval of God, or perhaps I'm doing it so I won't feel guilty, But the problem is reading God's Word out of a motivation or a sense of duty is based upon my effort and my willpower. Do you see a problem with that? So reading God's Word out of duty is a horrible motivation because doing something out of duty is only going to motivate you for just a very little while and a short while. And who gets the glory if I am able to guilt myself or if I'm able to tell myself, well, it's your duty, you ought to do this. Who gets the glory out of that? Myself. I get the glory out of that if I'm doing, if I'm reading God's Word out of duty. And when I do something to glorify myself, that's idolatry. There must be other examples. There must be other motivations that are better motivations to cause me to desire to read God's Word. This evening, I think, we're going to have a bonfire. Is that right, maybe? Well, we're going to have a bonfire sometime this weekend. Is that correct? We're going to have a bonfire. And when we go to build that bonfire, we're going to use something to get the fire started, right? Well, in our desire for God's Word, as we seek for a source and a motivation, let's think about the bonfire for a few minutes. You know, our desire for God must be fueled by something. There must be something that fuels that desire. And there are many things. There are many things that we could maybe look to, to motivate our desire as the source of our motivation for seeking God. But let's think about the bonfire for a few minutes. Just like a bonfire must be fueled by wood, and without fuel the bonfire goes out, So our desire for God must be fueled by something. You know, there are many things that we could throw on a bonfire to make it burn, to fuel it. For example, we could throw gasoline on the fire, and what's going to happen? Boy, it is going to really flame up, and it's going to be really bright, and it may have even an explosion for a few minutes, and it's going to look really impressive, and we're going to get a really big flame. But it's not going to last, because that gasoline is going to evaporate, and pretty soon that fire is going to die back down. Or we could take... hay or straw, and throw that into the bonfire. If you watch little boys around a bonfire, they just can't help but throw things into it. And they like to throw things into it, sometimes like hay and straw. Hay and straw burns, doesn't it? But it burns really quickly. Not very good fuel for a bonfire. So if you want a bonfire that's going to burn and you want something to fuel that bonfire, you've got to have something that is going to be lasting, that's going to continue to burn. So to keep that bonfire going, It is important that we start it with the best fuel and that we continue using the best fuel for the fire. And of course, that would be firewood. Well, the bonfire is the only example that I want to use, and it's probably a very inadequate one at that, but I want to paint a picture in your mind tonight that will hopefully help drive home the importance of the biblical truth that we're talking about tonight. Our desire for God must be fueled by something, just like a bonfire must be fueled by wood. What fuels our desire for God must be something that is lasting and that will be an unending supply. And duty as a motivation is really hard to sustain And it's really in short supply, isn't it? Really hard to motivate ourselves out of duty because it comes largely from within us. For our desire for God and His Word to be lasting, it must come from outside of us. And that is what we see the psalmist teaching us here in Psalm 119. The psalm begins with the word, blessed. Remember what we said about that word earlier, blessed? The term describes the truly happy person. The truly happy person is happy because they have been showered with favor by God. And so the truly happy person is happy because of God's favor, because of God's grace. Remember Ephesians 2.8.9, for by grace, You have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. So, grace is that gift of God that comes from outside of us, God's salvation. It's not a result of works. This is not a desire that was worked up from within because of duty. But God showered His blessing, His grace upon us. And that grace is what fuels our desire for God and His Word. The psalmist, speaking from experience, talks about 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 way." So the first motivation I want to offer you tonight is that we must be motivated first and foremost by experiencing God's grace. We must be motivated, first of all, by experiencing God's grace, being blessed, as the psalmist talks about. If we were to read this psalm with the understanding that we can become blessed, by being blameless and walking in the law of the Lord and keeping His testimonies and seeking Him with our whole heart, then we would be saying that being blessed, that is grace, is something that we can achieve or earn by our own performance. That interpretation of this verse would completely contradict the rest of the New Testament and would completely turn its meaning upside down. God's grace is what changes and transforms and then gives us the desire to be blameless and to keep His testimonies, not the other way around. In other words, being blessed here is what the psalmist is talking about, is what first gave him a desire to seek God and His Word. So experiencing God's grace is the first motivation to reading and studying God's Word. You know, believers, we know from experience, or I speak for myself, I assume that we've all probably had this experience, that even after experiencing God's grace and salvation, our desire for God's Word can sometimes burn down to a small flame, like a bonfire does without fuel, and something must fuel our desire for God. Something must continue to fuel that desire for God. So what must I do when my desire for God is just not there? What do I do when I don't desire His Word? Let me use another example. Chocolate. Do I have your attention? I'm guessing that this weekend we're probably going to enjoy a lot of desserts, aren't we? And probably a lot of those desserts are going to have that wonderful ingredient, that gift of God, chocolate in them. Not to mention the s'mores that we're going to get to enjoy at the bonfire. Now I have you thinking about chocolate, right? Do I need to talk to you and explain to you why chocolate is so good? Do I need to motivate you tonight that when the desserts are out there that you really need to eat some chocolate because it will really, really taste good and you're really going to enjoy it, so you ought to do it? Do I need to give you a list of reasons or explain to you why chocolate tastes good Why you ought to do it? I mean, you're a Baptist after all. Eating chocolate is your duty. With maybe a few exceptions, and in every crowd there's always a few exceptions, there may be somebody here that doesn't like chocolate, but most of us here really like chocolate, and we don't need to be convinced to eat it, or we don't need to be convinced that it's really good, right? I know one guy here that's allergic to chocolate. He may seem sick and he still likes chocolate and he still eats it. Well, few of us would have to be forced to eat chocolate. And if Cindy Loving were to give you one of her big pans of chocolate eclair and she would say, this is for you and just for you, you get to eat the whole thing. Do you think she's going to have to tell you Why that you need to eat it? No, what's going to happen is probably before you maybe even think to say thank you, you're probably going to dig into it and eat all that you can until you're satisfied, right? Well, we desire chocolate. Why? Because one time, for the very first time, We took one of those nuggets of wonderful brown gold and we unwrapped it and we put it in our mouths. And what happened? It tasted good. It was good. And we really, really liked it. We tasted that sweet, delicious taste. And the chocolate itself did what? The chocolate itself convinced us that it was good, didn't it? We eat it every chance we get, some of us a lot more than we should and some of us more often than we probably should, because it satisfies us and it always gives us that satisfying taste. Chocolate is good. Well, with this example of chocolate, I probably made you want some right now, right? It's hard to get your mind off chocolate. You know, I did not create that desire in you, did I? I didn't beg you to desire chocolate or guilt you or lecture you into wanting chocolate. I didn't actually do anything but just talk about chocolate. I mentioned the word chocolate and I had some of you right there from the word chocolate. are reminded of chocolate. You remember how good chocolate is. Once you've experienced chocolate in the past, you immediately remember how good it is. And the beauty and the danger of chocolate itself, the beauty and the danger of chocolate is that chocolate itself gives us a craving for it. It's hard to resist, right? We call that craving desire or delight. I'll be honest, I desire and I delight in chocolate. I could eat it every day. Sometimes I even put it in my coffee. Well, the things that we delight in the most are the things that we enjoy the most. We enjoy them. We don't have to necessarily be motivated because the thing itself motivates us. And so the psalmist does not use guilt as a motivation, but he reminds us how good God is. In another psalm, he even uses our sense of taste to remind us of God's goodness. Psalm 34.8, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. What fuels our desire for God and His Word? The psalmist speaking from experience says, our appetite is fueled by God Himself. When we taste and see how good He is, we keep coming back to Him because He satisfies us and He tastes so much better than chocolate in a spiritual way, and He satisfies us so much more. causes us to desire to seek Him. And so the second motivation that we see here in Psalm 119 as we are going to continue looking at what he writes, the second motivation for reading and studying God's Word I want to hold out before you today is seeing God's goodness. Seeing God's goodness. The rest of Psalm 119, the psalmist speaks from experience about God's Word being His delight. The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119. The longest chapter in the whole Bible. 176 verses. And what are they about? They're all about how satisfying and how valuable God is and how satisfying God's Word is to the psalmist. He just can't stop writing. He goes on and on and on talking about the satisfaction that he gets from God. Listen to how the psalmist describes God and His Word as we read some of these verses. The psalmist is fueling his desire for God by going to the Scriptures and the Scriptures reminding him of God's character. God's Word fuels a yearning to see God in His beauty and then to be so in love with Him that we want this same perfection in our lives. So here's the application really of the message. Usually you give that at the end, but I'm going to give that right now. Go to God's Word for the motivation to desire God's Word. Go to God's Word for the motivation to desire God's Word. Don't look to other things to motivate you. Duty, or it's the right thing, or guilt, or whatever it is that you find yourself falling back on to cause you to seek, or to cause you to say, you know, I really ought to desire God's Word. so much greater than chocolate, the Holy Spirit uses God's Word to give us a craving for Himself. And this desire can only come from Him. And it comes when we experience His grace and then when we continue to see His goodness in His Word. Let me give you some examples of how the psalmist in Psalm 119 motivates himself. This is what he does and this is how he goes to God's Word to motivate himself to desire to read God's Word. You can write these verses down if you want to as something that will be helpful to you in the future. He talks about God's Word being my delight. God's Word being my delight. Psalm 119 verse 16, I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget Your Word. Psalm 119, verse 47, For I find my delight in Your commandments, which I love. Psalm 119, verse 92, If Your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. Psalm 119, verse 143, Trouble, and anguish have found me out, but Your commandments are my delight." Psalm 119, 174, I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight. And then he sees God's Word as my counselors, my counselors. Where do you go for counsel and advice? The psalmist here says in verse 24, your testimonies are my delight, they are my counselors. He finds counsel from God's Word. And then another thing that he finds in God's Word is, if you're numbering these, this would be number three, Consolation and strength. My consolation. That's something that consoles me in my sorrow when things are troubling me. He says in verse 28, my soul melts away for sorrow. Strengthen me according to Your Word. And then he says in verse 50, this is my comfort in my affliction, that Your promise gives me life. And then he says, God's Word is my hope. My hope, number four. In verse 43, And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules. And then verse 81, My soul longs for your salvation. I hope in your Word. Do you hear how he keeps going back to God's Word and how it is God's Word that gives him this hope and gives him this consolation and is his counselor? God's Word itself is what motivates him and gives him a desire to go back to Him. And then number five, he says that God's Word is my life. He says in verse 37, Turn my eyes from looking at worthless, things, and give me life in your ways." Verse 93, I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. And then number six, he sees God's Word as my treasure. Verse 72, The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. It's my treasure. It's better than thousands of gold and silver pieces. And verse 162, I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. And then he sees that God's Word is my heritage, my inheritance, my reward, my ultimate reward. He says in verse 111, your testimonies are my heritage forever. So God's Word continues to be his heritage, it continues. to fuel him with that desire for God, continues to meet his needs, to draw him to Christ, to change him forever. He goes on to say, for they are the joy of my heart. And then he finds that God's Word is my hiding place and shield. My hiding place and shield. Verse 114, you are my hiding place and my shield. I hope in Your Word." And then, my peace. God's Word was my peace. Great peace have those who love Your Law. Nothing can make them stumble. So these are just nine things that I'm sure we can find many, many more. But nine things that he sees from God's Word that give him a desire, that fuel his desire to go to God's Word. And where does that desire come from? It comes from God. And when he reads God's Word, he finds there the motivation and the desire to continue going back to study and to read God's Word. When your desire for God and reading and studying His Word is lacking, be motivated by the same holy motivation that the psalmist was here. Just like the bonfire, our desire for God must be fueled by something that is the best fuel and the lasting fuel. And for our desire for God and His Word to be lasting, it must come from outside of us. It must come from experiencing God's grace, number one. And secondly, from seeing God's goodness. You know, some of you haven't been able to get chocolate and s'mores off your brains since I mentioned it, have you? I don't know about you, but I want my desire for God's Word to be that strong. The only thing that can give that to us, the only thing that can give that desire to us is tasting and seeing God's goodness. And so the psalmist prays in Psalm 119, verse 18, he prays that when he goes to God's Word, he prays, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things. out of your law." So I go back to God's Word because it is the only source that can remind me of how He satisfies me and that will give me a craving and desire for Him and more and more. Well, the last verse of the chapter, verse 176, the psalmist here reveals something about himself. that his desire for God is not always perfect. As a matter of fact, he doesn't always desire God. His desire isn't where it should be. Verse 176 says, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. He says from experience that sometimes my desire isn't there. I go to God's Word and I see this. And I see how wonderful He is. And I see how He satisfies and how delightful God is in His Word. But sometimes I go astray like a lost sheep. So what does He tell us to do if that's what happens? It will happen. It does happen in our lives. He prays immediately after that statement, seek your servant. God, seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments. He confesses his sin and he recognizes that God's grace seeks him out. And he can never forget God's Word because he has tasted and seen God's goodness. And he knows that God is the means of restoring him and giving him a desire. In other places, he asks this question, verse 9, How can a young man keep his way pure? How can a young man stay on course? How can I not chase after other desires? By guarding it according to Your Word. And then in Psalm 119, verse 36, another prayer, another prayer. He says, incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to selfish gain. When we go to God's Word, we need to pray these prayers. God, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain, not to other things. And then verse 37, he prays, turn my eyes from looking at worthless things. So he knows his heart. He knows that he is easily distracted. He knows that there are other things that want to steal away his desire and tempt away his desire. And so he prays when he goes to God's Word that God will turn his eyes away from those other things and give him life in your ways, in your words. So, tonight I hope I've encouraged you, but the main thing I want you to take away from this, is don't think that you have to have some other motivation or something else to motivate you to go and read God's Word. God's Word itself will do that in you. And so if you awake one morning and your heart is sluggish and doesn't desire God's Word, and you find your heart turning and looking to other worthless things. You don't have to necessarily give yourself a pep talk, guilt yourself, tell yourself that it's your duty and how you ought to be. No, go to God's Word. It will give you a desire for His Word. When you see His beauty, and you're reminded of who He is, it will give you the motivation. So don't look for something within yourself. God's Word itself will give you the desire and will call you back by His Holy Spirit. Let's close. We thank you, Father, for Psalm 119. We thank you for the desire that we see here in this psalmist, in the man who wrote these words, how He desired you, how He experienced your grace, and how that fueled Him to pursue you. We thank You that we see here that Your Word gives us that desire. And God, when our hearts want to turn to other worthless things, or when our desire is not there, help us not to turn to things that won't work. Help us to turn to Your Word, knowing that You will supply the desire and the want to. It comes from Your Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And so do this in us, and use this in our lives in a great way to motivate us and to give us a great desire to see You and to know You in Your Word. Amen.