INTRODUCTION
By now, I hope you have realized that Psalm 119 is a celebration of the word of God. The Bible is God’s gift to -- the words that come out of His mouth. A physically hungry Jesus reminded us all that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The Bible is our life. From it we learn about God, about man, about salvation, and about all we need for life. The Bible is our guide, wisdom for all our days.
The author of Psalm 119 demonstrates how the Word of God is applicable to all the questions of his life, and all the situations within in which he finds himself. That is why it is so exciting and worthy of study.
TEXT: Psalm 119:17–24, GIMEL
17Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.
18Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
19I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!
20My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.
21You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.
22Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies.
23Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.
24Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.
Like all of Psalm 119, the solution to the problem is the Word of God. The problem of this section is that the writer feels that he lives as an alien in a world separated from God. His love for God is certain, but he is surrounded by people who do not love God, and consequently don’t like him very much either.
Verse 19 is the key verse in this stanza and it is contrasted with verse 21:
19I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! …21You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.
The author is a sojourner, a stranger on the earth. He is an alien, one who lives in enemy territory. The earth is not his home. How is he to survive? By the commandments of God. Contrast that with verse 21, the insolent and accursed ones are those who find their home is indeed earth, and they have no time for the commandments of God.
There are two kinds of people on the earth, the ones who are at home here and the ones who are strangers. Which one are you?
Make no mistake, God’s people are always strangers on the earth. Consider the father of all faithful people, Abraham. God began the family of God by calling Abraham out of his home country, and he never returned. He moved him to Canaan, a land owned by various tribal peoples who had founded small city-states. He lived as a guest in those lands, pitching his tents where he could, and never making bricks to build himself a home. He continued in this way until his death.
How did Abraham survive this life as a stranger in a strange land? He lived on the words of God. God spoke to Abraham and gave him visions of a world that was not yet, and Abraham believed God.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”—Genesis 12:1-3
Abram received orders from God. Allow me to paraphrase: “Leave your hometown and live as a stranger. Go where I say. The result will be you will be that I will make you the father of a great nation that blesses all the families of the earth.”
Do you know Abraham? Do you know who is? He is the father of all Jews. Eventually, from Abraham’s family would come a young lady name Mary and a young man named Joseph, and God would give Mary a son, named Jesus. Jesus is a child of God and a child of Abraham.
Jesus would not only teach the Jews, but when He died for the sins of the Jews, He died also to take away the sins of anyone in other nations who would believe in Him. He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and left a command:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations—Matthew 28:19
From that time until this, the name of this Son of Abraham, Jesus, has spread to all the families of the earth, and in each nation, people come to know the God of Abraham, and become, by faith, part of the family of Abraham. For the Bible says:
7Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. --Galatians 3:7
The salvation of millions and millions of people through Jesus Christ began when one man was taken from his home and told to live as a sojourner in the land of Canaan. Abraham had to live as a stranger amid people who at times wanted him dead. He could have said, “I should just go back home to where I came from,” but he did not, because he lived on the words of God. When times got hard, and he began to falter, God would come to him again, and talk to him some more. For example, years after moving himself and his family to the promised land, Abraham had not had even one son, none-the-less had he become the father of a nation. As he became discouraged, God visited him and spoke words to strengthen him:
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. –Genesis 15:1-6
Abraham would finish his life faithfully, and if you are not familiar with his story, you can go and study Genesis again. But what he has in common with the writer of Psalm 119 is that he is a sojourner on the earth who needed the Words of God for his survival.
In America today, our generation of Christians has been entrusted with the faithful news of Jesus at a unique time. America is a country where the Christian worldview has been embraced as normative from day one. This is not to say that to be American means to be a Christ follower, but it is to say that to be an American has meant being free to follow Christ in a nation that values what God values: truth, justice, and life. But this generation is the first that can be said to be “post-Christian.”
In other words, the powers that be in government, education, entertainment, and business no longer feel bound by respecting the Christian worldview. In fact, they reject the Christian worldview and are openly hostile. So now Christians in America are beginning to feel as if they are aliens in a land that once felt like home. (If there is one major weakness of the church in America it is that we have made this world too comfortable of a place for ourselves, forgetting that this is not home). But really, we have always been aliens in the world. To place one’s faith in Jesus is to leave this world as home, in the same way that Abraham received God’s call and left his hometown forever.
We have a home. This is not it. We have never been destined for this earth, and have always been called to lay down all we have here for the sake of our true home.
The Psalm writer, many believe, is David. Others dispute this, but I have no concern for, whoever he is, he speaks from God. But if it is David, the great king of Israel, note that even he sees himself as a stranger in his home. Look what he says:
23Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.
He is conscience that he has powerful people who seek his harm. American Christian, do you not feel this way? And what is his answer? He meditates on the statues of God. The words of God are his help.
My friends, my goal is to call you to repentance of a specific sin, and to exhort you on to good works without fear.
I hear many Christians fearing because they look to the future and wonder what kind of world their children will be inherit. I see Christians reacting with anger and fear when they look forward and see that their legal protections as Christians are breaking down; or that the institutions that made this nation wealthy and free are being destroyed; or when they consider that the future may include limited freedom and great loss. I am calling all here to repent of the sin of looking to the future with fear instead of trust in God.
We behave as if something odd was happening to us and that our God is not able to sustain and guide us through the storm. Everyone’s favorite psalm is psalm 23 which claims that the Shepherd is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death, but I wonder if many Christians even trust God enough to go through the valley of life without falling apart.
David wrote that God “preparest a table for me…” where? In the presence of his enemies? He didn’t say, “But I don’t see how He can.” He belived it. Surrounded by enemies, David sat down to a dinner provided by God.
It is not unusual for people who love God to find themselves a minority in a wicked and twisted generation. Think about the heroes of scripture: Stephen, Paul, Peter, Noah, Daniel, Joseph, Esther, Elijah, Jesus.
God has called us to live as strangers in an alien land.
Do not love the world nor the things in the world... The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. –1 John 2:15,17
Peter calls us “aliens and strangers.” This world is not our home.
I know that we live in a twisted and wicked world, and the division between dark and light is getting greater. But that is not a justification for living in fear. And many, hear me, give in to the temptation of mis-trusting God by saying, “I’m not worried about me but about my children and the world they will grow up in.” What? Is God not Lord of your children also? Will God be good to you and sustain you, but suddenly become absent when your children’s generation comes? No! Doubting the goodness of God, when He has made you great promises, is unbelief and it is sin.
How many here need to repent of the sin of giving into fear when looking to the future? If so, repent. God wants you to.
And He said to His disciples, “For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. “For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. “Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds! “And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span?—Luke 12:22-25
Do you see the promise God has made to you? He is watching you personally. He sees your life. He sees your children too, and your grandchildren. He will be with the faithful in every nation in every generation. And to be a Christian means to be surrounded by our enemies. To live in fear and dread because of what is happening in the world is sin. God has called you to trust Him, instead. Who here needs to repent of the sin of looking forward with fear instead of hope? I’m going to give you a chance, but first look at what Peter has to say to us on the matter:
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.—2 Peter 2:4-10
The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. That is your answer to your question about the future. Do you look to the future with fear and say, “Yeah, I know what you say, but what about …?” And so on? Any sentence that begins that way is from the devil, and should be answered with, “It is written: The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials!”
The day the Lord forgets how to rescue the godly from trials, then you can fear, but not till then! It is time, Christians, for you to repent of your fear of tomorrow. We are the only ones of the earth who can look to tomorrow with real hope.
“And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. “For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. “But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” –Luke 12:29-32
Who here needs to repent of not trusting God? Who here needs to repent of looking at the news and determining whether the day will be good or bad depending on the news of the world, instead of the word of God? Who here needs to repent of the sin of distrusting God under the guise of love for their children?
Christians, our Father calls us to be lights in a dark place. We can only do that if we set aside our lives and the fears that come with that and live as joyous aliens knowing we will one day be going home.