Psalm 119 verses 129 through 136, these are God's words. Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The entrance of your word gives light, it gives understanding to the simple. I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for your commandments. Look upon me and be merciful to me, as is your custom toward those who love your name. Direct my steps by your word. And let no iniquity have dominion over me. Redeem me from the oppression of man, that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep your law. Men, so far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. We in our flesh have too high a view of ourselves. It was a lie from the devil. that we could be made like God by sinning. And ever since we committed that transgression in our first father, Adam, we have thought of ourselves like gods. And we have had this inflated view of ourself. But you notice in verse 130, how it is that we come to realize that we're in the dark. It's when his word enters and gives us light. How is it that we come to realize that we are foolish, that we are naive and simple? It's when His Word enters and gives understanding, the entrance of your Word. Words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. And how does His Word show us that we are in darkness and foolish and naive? Well, it shows us Him so that we can see by comparison. It would be an infinitely greater example of someone who played a sport or an instrument or something. They were from a town of a couple hundred and they got to be better at it than anybody else in the town. And then they went to a great competition where the very best from each of the nations of the world were there and they tried to play their sport or their instrument or whatever it was. It wouldn't be until they were around that which was so much greater than they were that their illusion of their own ability and proficiency would burst. How infinitely more than is the illusion of our being intelligent and wise and good that our flesh each of us each of you from your flesh from the nature that you obtained in your first father Adam have such an opinion of yourselves but praise God he comes by his word and when he comes by his word and he shows us himself his wonderful testimonies, abandons the idea that we have light or wisdom in ourselves, realizes how much we are in darkness and foolish, and we devote ourselves to keeping his word with our whole self. And so your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The entrance of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. And when we come to know him like that, we come to long for him. How can we? and keep that which we do not know. And so the word picture in verse 131, I opened my mouth and panted for I longed for your commandments. We don't become or we don't remain once we have learned how glorious God is and how his word is what teaches us what he is like. gives us light and understanding so that we may know him and belong to him, serve him. We are no longer content in ourselves. We feel that we must have him by means of his word. We must have his word or else we will die. I opened my mouth and panted for I longed for your commandments like someone who is super thirsty and parched. opening our mouths and just longing for him. And I wonder for each of us and each of you should think about this for yourself. Do I long for his word? Do I desire his word? Like someone who has been so thirsty I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for your commandments. Ultimately, we don't just desire his words, but we desire him himself. We desire his grace to bring us near, but in order for us to be brought near, we also must be holy. And so the next request or the request in verse 132 is, look upon me and be merciful to me as your custom is toward those who love your name. Direct my steps by your word. and let no iniquity have dominion over me. We desire that mercy from God, which directs our steps and frees us from sin, so that we may come to him, know his word, keep his word, belong to him, and please him. This is the great goal, and so the great danger when we are oppressed by men is not that they might get their way with us, but that God might not get from us what he has commanded us. Note verse 134 and the request in 134 and its relationship to the result at which the request aims. The request is, redeem me from the oppression of man. But the result at which it ends is that I may keep your precepts. It is because we are still so fleshly that in every situation where we are in trouble, we tend to think of how can I get this trouble? What are they trying to do to me? How can I get out of this trouble? What are they trying to do to me? How can I bring about the resulting situation that I want? rather than in the time of trouble saying, what are the spiritual dangers that face me now? How am I in danger of sinning in this circumstance? But it's, if we think that way, if we think according to the spirit, if we think according to the new nature of the life of Christ in us, applied by his Holy Spirit, that's when we say, how am I in danger of sinning in this situation? And that's when we pray things like 134, redeem me from the oppression of man that I may keep your precepts. That's what we are desiring. That's what we ought to desire. The redemption that we're looking for is not just the removal of the oppression, beginning of verse 134, but the knowing of God and the knowing of the pleasure of God and the love of God as he teaches us how to love him who first loved us. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. We see the great goodness of God, that he would make us to know him and to know his love for us and his pleasure in us. Make your face shine upon your servants. Every once in a while, I hope it's more than that, but certainly not by comparison to Our Heavenly Father, your Earthly Father, who has great thankfulness to God for you and great delight in you, enjoys to smile upon you and praise God, family worship is a time in which we get to do that a large amount, but it's just the smallest picture. of what it is that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Yahweh, the true and living God who has all glory and goodness, even all existence inherent to himself. that He makes His face shine upon us, that He takes us to be His very own and gives us that wonderful title, Your Servant, in verse 135. And so that when He teaches us His statutes, He's not doing it merely as a tyrant trying to get us to do what He wants. He's giving us to embrace the privilege, the nobility, the greatness of that title that He has placed upon us. Your servant, we are His servants. And because we are His servants, we need to know His statutes so that we may do what He says as those who belong to Him. and those who belong to him in love and in delight because he's making his face shine on us as he teaches us his statutes and we love to do what he says because we belong to him and he loves us and he's made us to love him and to know his love for us. Well, once you know God that way and once you have come to view obedience to God that way, How much worse is it that there are so many who do not keep his law, who live in that willful darkness, that willful foolishness, where the word has not yet entered and shown them that they were in darkness and folly and given them light and understanding like verse 130 said. And the light that they're lacking is the shining of God's face upon them. And so for the honor of God and His glory, whose law is broken and even out of delight in what He has given us, and therefore grief over those who willfully refuse it, when we come into the joy of belonging to God well in this life, because it is in this life. And there are so many who are in darkness without God and without hope in the world. The great joy of being a Christian is joined to the great grief of seeing those who do not keep his law. Even in the church, many do not keep his law because they are so man-centered in their view of salvation. Even when they say, even when they hold to a proper view of justification and how we're made right with God. And they say, well, it's only by what Jesus has done and not by what we have done. And then they take aspects of that because they don't listen to how the Bible talks about sanctification. And they say, so you better not try to keep his law, which is exactly the opposite of what actually happens in someone when God is saving them. They come to love his law, like all of Psalm 119 says. And so it's very man-centered. How does man... become right with God and therefore let man be ultra careful not to mess that up. But it misses, it misses what God is saving us for. And that's of course a what question with a whom answer. It is for himself. and for the knowledge of his love to us and for the shining of his face on us and the enjoyment of his delight in us and missing that about God and loving to learn his statutes because we belong to him and we enjoy expressing our belonging to him by keeping his laws and learning his laws. The psalmist is among Israel, and yet he's looking around Israel, as it were, in verse 136, and seeing that there are those who do not keep God's law, and he says, rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep your law. So there's great instruction and challenge here, I think, for us, just in our minds and in our hearts, for each of us to ask ourself, Do I enjoy the shining of God's face upon me? And do I try to learn his statutes? Because when I do what he says, that's one of the ways that the fact that I belong to him gets displayed. And I love enjoying that I belong to him and displaying that I belong to him. So there's a question about our joy and our delight. for each of us to ask ourselves here. And then there's a question about our grief or lack thereof. Are we profoundly moved that God's law isn't kept and especially that it isn't kept in the churches? Well, may His Holy Spirit conform us to Christ, take away our darkness, take away our folly, give us the light and the wisdom of the Lord Jesus, and conform even our actions and our affections to the Lord Jesus as well. Amen, let's pray. Our Father, truly your testimonies are wonderful and we thank you for coming near now by the scriptures which you have caused to be recorded for us we pray that your same holy spirit who carried them along and has preserved the scriptures for us to this day that He would help each of us as we think about Your Word, as we ask ourselves these questions that Your Word presses upon us. We pray, Lord, that You would give us to see Your light and to see Your wisdom and to abandon self-satisfaction, that we might be hungry and thirsty and long for you by means of your word. Grant that your spirit would conform us both to the joys and to the griefs of the Lord Jesus, we ask in his name. Amen.