Sermon Cloud

Title: Portrait of a Devoted Servant and a Gracious God

 God is the hope, life, confidence, and grace to those who trust in Him. 

READ: Psalm 119:14-152.

2 Necessary Components of a vibrant spiritual life. 

I. A Devoted Servant

(a) Passionate Prayer (145-146)

(b) Tireless Dedication (147-148)

II. A Gracious God

(a) Unwavering Grace (149)

(b) Trustworthy Presence (150-151a)

(c) Unfailing Word (151b-152)

I. A Devoted Servant

(A) Is Passionate in Prayer (145-146)

 “I cried” - expresses the psalmist passion in prayer. 

Ps. 79:6 (Jer. 10:25) “the kingdoms which do not call upon Your Name” - i.e. That do not recognize Your sovereignty, glory, and power; i.e. That do not worship You. In contrast, God’s people do recognize these things about God and do call on Him out of a sense of both dependence and grace; they do worship Him by praying to Him. 

Those who do not belong to God do not seek Him in prayer - genuine prayer. Not formalities, obligatory prayers, or selfish prayers that never rise above how God can serve you. But genuine heart cries of longing that express desire, dependence, worship, need, and genuine relationship. 

Prayer is a form of worship because it:

(1) Recognize our weakness and dependence, 

(2) Demonstrates faith, and 

(3) Acknowledges God’s glory in: preeminence,  sovereignty, and willingness to show grace and mercy to those who come humbly before Him. God’s people seek Him in prayer - God’s people are praying people. 

“I called with all of my heart” - that is the prayer of regenerate heart; it is only the prayer of a regenerate heart. Pagans pray all the time; religious hypocrites pray all the time too; but they do not pray the prayers of faith, humility, and worship. They do not pray prayers that God hears and will answer. 

It speaks of unhindered dedication; it is the overflowing of righteous longing and desire (2 King 23:3; Ps. 119:2 ,34, 58, 69; Zeph. 3:14). Cf. James 1 “without doubting.” Speaks of personal purity; not holding onto and hiding sin in some secret crevice of the heart - God knows and sees (Heb. 4:12; Is. 1). But a heart that is truly seeking God. 

God is more concerned about the sincerity of prayer than He is about the diction or even clarity of prayer. The Spirit overcomes our feeble and inadequate expressions with groanings too deep for words, but the cries of a broken heart, a rejoicing heart, or a longing heart in God are ever a straight path to gain a hearing in the inner court of God. 

(1) True prayer is an expression faith and guards the soul against unbelief: 

“Satan strikes at all of God in the soul. Unbelief readily yields to his suggestions. This is the element in which we live - the warfare of every moment.” (Bridges)

(2) True prayer is persistent:  

“If his heart be dead and cold, let him rather cry and wait (as Luther was used to do, till it be warm and enlivened. The hypocrite, indeed, would be satisfied with the barren performance of the duty).” (Bridges)

(3) True prayer is based on relationship: 

“I called to You” -   to the God of Israel; to YHWH; to the God who has revealed Himself in His Word and to His people. That is to say, to the One true and living God, Maker of heaven and earth. Not to idols, not to god's of their own imagination (Ps. 115; Jer. 5); but to the God who created the stars and calls them all by name! When we come to prayer it is really God we seek more than just the answer to the petition itself.

“The great object in prayer should constantly be the enjoyment of God; and however inadequate the believer’ conceptions my be, yet  he has a distinct idea of his object; so distinct, that you can never impose upon a real saint, by offering him something else in the room of it. He knows what he wants; and he knows that this or that is not the thing which he wants.” (Augustine). 

A true believer is never content with formality or perfunctory prayer; he longs for God; he longs for His presence, a sense of His favor, His power, His listening ear. 

ILLUST: Formal prayer is no more satisfying for a true believer than kissing a cardboard cut of his wife would be to a husband. It is her embrace he longs for; it is the real sound of her voice and the real enjoyment of her presence - a living being!

(146) “that I may keep … guard” - the burden that laid heavy on the heart of the psalmist was his obedience to the Word of God. He was troubled and driven to the ground out of a sense of longing for courage, understanding, yielded-ness to the Word of God. He knew his weakness; he knew his frailties, he knew his own susceptibility to sin; he was not relying on his own strength, but God’s. 

Reminds of the Lord Jesus “I have kept Your Word” and His prayer for His disciples “who have kept My Word” (John 17). 

God wants us to come to Him with this kind of prayer. Often times He will bring us into trials just to stir in us this sense of dependence upon Him; a purifying of our desires; and produce in us perseverance, humility, commitment, and faith: 

“And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’” (Zech. 13:9). 

Also, Ps. 34:15-18. They weren’t calling on Him before, but after the trial they did. 

(B) Tireless Dedication (147-148). 

“I rise before dawn … my eyes are open before” - the longing of his heart for fellowship with God are stronger than his desire for sleep! Can I say this? When we lay in bed to long and yet don’t have time in prayer, what are we desiring more? What are we saying, at that moment is most important to us? 

This took discipline; it required him to make choices. The sincerity of passion is evidenced by the consequent diligence in pursuing God’s Word. 

He cannot keep and guard what He does not know. He cannot long for and trust a God he is unfamiliar with. His soul cannot find satisfaction if it is not fed with the food that nourishes a spiritual heart. 

Mark 1:21-35 - it was the habit of the Lord! Even through the night (Luke 6:12-16). 

One has noted, “Someone has calculated that the average believer, if he lives to be 75 years of age, spends 25 years asleep, 17 years at work, 6 years in  traveling, 7 ½ years in dressing, 9 years in watching television, 6 years being sick, and only 4 years in prayer and Bible study. Imagine 4 years out of 75 preparing for eternity … Suppose we converted half the travel time the travel time, mostly idle time, into praying or memorizing Scripture instead of daydreaming. Suppose we invested most of the time spent dressing engaging our minds in prayer. Suppose we took an hour less sleep a night and devoted the time to concentrated Bible study. Suppose we cut two-thirds of the time spent watching television and devoted that time to reading the Bible, studying the word, and praying for family, friends, missionaries, and all hose hundreds of other things we say we are too busy to pray about. Why, we could increase the time we spend in prayer and Bible study by 19 years.” (Philips). 

While this may not accurately reflect out time for each individual life, it does make a good point of how we disproportionate the time we spend on things non-eternal is with the time spent on things eternal, and that will reap present fruit and eternal reward.

 “I hope/wait for your words” - that is understanding of YHWH’s Word; answer to the prayers founded on YHWH’s Word. This same thought is expressed 4 other times in Psalm 119 (43, 74, 81, 114). It carries the idea of faith/trust. Taking God at His Word and trusting Him to act according to it in perfect wisdom. (cf. Micah 7:7). Also, Ps. 42:6, 12; 43:5; *Lam. 3:21, 24. 

“He knows not only what grace is needed, but at what time. Not a moment sooner will it come; not a moment later will it be delayed … And if in pleading my suit for a hearing according to His loving-kindness, my poor, polluted, lifeless petitions should find no liberty of approach; may I be but enabled to direct one believing look to ‘the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne!’ (Rev. V. 6), and I will not doubt that my feeblest offering shall come up a s a memorial before God.” (Bridges). 

Negative examples of failing to wait: 

1 Sam. 10:8; 13:1ff (*8-9) offer a negative example. Saul did not wait on the Lord because he did not truly trust the Lord. Therefore, in pride he took things into his own hands. His subsequent excuses further display the true condition of his heart. 

Ezek. 13:6 offers another example of false hope. There it is the false hope of the false prophets who make their own presumptions and then expect them to be fulfilled, rather than waiting on and trusting in YHWH. 

“to meditate in Your Word” - he waits and meditates on God’s word. He lives not on bread alone but on “every word that proceeds out from the mouth of God” - i.e. All Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Common habit of the psalmist vv. 15, 23, 27, 48, 78.

Prov. 6:22 “When you walk about, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk to you”

II. A Gracious God (2^nd component to a vibrant spiritual life). 

(A)Unwavering Grace (149). 

“Listen to my voice, according to Your lovingkindness, O LORD” - that’s bold! This a man with a great deal of faith and confidence in the mercy and grace of God! And here is the culminating cry of the previous 4 verses. The affections of the psalmist have been welling inside like a ballon being filled with water, now it is more than he can handle and it is time to bursts forth in prayer. 

Philips gives the illustration of a mother who slips out of a service because she hears the cries of her baby in the nearby nursery. How much more does God hear the cries of His children. 

 The grounds of confidence in his prayer; not his righteousness, but the Lord’s grace. His “lovingkindness.”  Here he attaches it with the second use of God’s covenant Name YHWH! Boldness and humility go hand in hand in the child of God. Humility that is keenly aware of the distance that exist between an infinite, Almighty, and holy God and His creature; yet, confident the promise and display of grace that governs all His actions toward His own. (Ps. 25:7; 51:1; 109:26; 119:26, 88, 124, 159). Now we know more fully the expression and substance of this grace in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:8-10; *Heb. 4:14-16 - imagine how precious the words of Hebrews would have been to this OT Jew; we have them [Heb. 11:39-40]). 

“that I may live according to Your judgments”  - an intense request. Can almost picture the white knuckles of clenched hands; or the the desperate staring with the eyes in to heaven with hands raised as if to to pull down the answer and blessing of God into his heart. 

(B) A Trustworthy Presence (150-151a). 

“Those who follow after wickedness draw near … You are near” - Here is a parallel between the approach of the wicked who forsake God’s Law, and the nearness of God - “the nearness of God is my good.” One writer notes, “The threat is not glossed over; it is put in perspective by a bigger fact.” (Kidner). 

“they draw near” - Why? To harm and persecute the psalmist, which is to persecute the righteous. 

God often uses trials and persecution to refine His children, to remind them of their dependence upon Him. This was the case with Paul (2 Cor. 1:8-9). 

The problem of the ancient Israelites was that when they experienced consistent ease they forgot God (*Deut. 8; Judges). Affliction brought them to repent of their idolatry and return to the LORD their God. 

“You are near, O LORD” - 

(1) He is near to those who are broken hearted and crushed in spirit            (Ps. 34:17; *Is. 57:15)

(2) He is near to those who fear Him and keep His commandments (Ps. 85:10)

(3) He is near to those who call upon Him in sincerity and truth (Ps. 145:18)

Jer. 12:2 - those with whom God is “near to their lips but far from their mind.”

Jesus said that the He, along with the Father, through the Spirit abides in every believer. He promised also that He would never leave or forsake His own. And He longs that we will one day be with Him where He is so that we may see His glory. 

Jesus Himself knew the nearness of the Father in His hour of need (John 16:32 “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave me alone; and yet I am not alone; because the Father is with Me”). 

Paul “At my first defense no one supported me, btu all deserted me … but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me” (2 Tim. 4:17). 

God has redeemed us that we may forever dwell near Him in perfect fellowship (Rev. 21:3). 

“He who has been with God in the closet will find God with him in the furnace.” (Spurgeon). 

(C) An Unfailing Word

“And all Your commandments are true” - God’s Word stands; God’s promises are sure. Though all may leave, yet let all men be found liar, while God will be found to be true. Despite the lies and blasphemy of his enemies we can confidently rest on the promises and the Word of God. 

“That soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.” 

God’s Word is true and trustworthy: 

2 Sam. 7:28 - David trusted in God’s promises because he knew God’s words were true.

2 Chr. 15:3 - it is judgment and distress for a nation when there is no teacher of truth from God’s Word. 

Neh. 9:13 - God’s Law is true (decalogue)

Ps. 19:10 - God’s judgments are true they are “righteous altogether”

Ps. 31:5 - God is a God of truth (John 14; 17:17) 

*119:160 “The sum of Your Word is truth; and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” 

Ps. 111:7 - All of God’s works are done in truth

Prov. 12:19 - in the same way, those who speak truth will be established forever, while the deceitful are only for a moment. 

Is. 59:14 - An apostate nation does not want to hear the truth (2 Tim. 4)

Dan. 8:12 - A time is coming when the nations will mount in their opposition to the truth and revel in their lies and hypocrisy. 

Zech. 8:16 - God’s people are to speak the truth and judge according to the truth. Eph. 4:16 speaking the truth in love, which rejoices not in unrighteousness, but in the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). 

God’s word is truth; men will hate Him and His followers because they speak the truth; but they will posses the Spirit of truth; and those who love the truth will listen to them, but the world will not (John 10; 16; 1 John 4). 

“You have founded them forever”  - The solid foundation of God’s word. The word of man comes and goes, yet God’s word abides forever. 

God’s Word are an extension of God’s character. They are as enduring and authoritative as God Himself. Think of this, God, in eternity past, before creation God existed alone in perfect glory, joy, blessedness, and fellowship between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. His glory was complete and full and satisfying inherently. In His eternal counsel He chose to bring glory to Himself through creation. Specifically, by creating a universe that would fall that He would redeem at the cost of the anguish of the Son of God, but to His glory as He would forever be the object of their adoration. In eternity past was the “Word and the Word was with God, the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

Jesus Christ is the Living Word. The OT and NT are the written Word. From eternity past the Living Word, being God was with God, the inscripturated Word was in the mind of God, and the means by which He would ordain to reveal Himself and so bring glory to Himself among men. 

Is. 40; 1 Pet. 1 - heaven and earth will pass away; people pass away; nations pass away; false teachers come and go; but God’s Word stands forever.